1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communications networks, and more particularly to a system and method for reliable data delivery to a group of receivers using overlay distribution tree.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Reliable delivery of content to a group of receivers has several applications. IP-multicast based solutions have been advocated to address content delivery to groups. However, due to deployment issues and scalability concerns, IP-multicast has not succeeded in providing large-scale reliable group communication.
An example of an IP-multicast network is shown in FIG. 1. The network includes an origin node 101 and receiving nodes, e.g., 102 connected through TCP servers, e.g., 103. As is illustrated, each communication comprises multiple connections between, for example, the origin node and a server, and between the server and the receiving node.
While IP-multicast has been examined and matured into a communication mechanism for group-based communication, because of deployment and scalability issues, it is not an attractive solution. More particularly, IP-multicast is not widely deployed in the Internet in spite of extensive research as well as industrial efforts. Further, the throughput of TCP-based reliable communication decreases as the inverse of log of number of participants if IP-multicast is used. Thus, IP-multicast is difficult to scale.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for a scalable overlay distribution tree.